>> thank you for your patience. i m leader pelosi's district rector in san francisco. i've been with the for about nine years, and we are excited to put on this forum today to help people learn how they can access credit and capital for

their small business. click background on some of what was accomplished in the last congress when later closing was speaker of the house. she had had 16 tax cuts signed into law to help small businesses grow and thrive. as we know, during the last 15 years, small businesses account for about 2/3 of the job growth in our country, but when the bush recession hits in 2009, 2010, small businesses were hit particularly hard. small businesses are the center of her agenda. congress under her leadership gave 27 million small businesses tax cuts. two main pieces of legislation -- the small businesses jobs act in the information you have, will create a total of 500,000 jobs and create eight tax cuts. they are all described in the packet you have.

also, unleashing up to $300 billion in credit for small businesses to access. there are another eight tax cuts that were passed through a number of different laws. some of our panelists will address those. even though now we are in an environment where there is a republican majority in the house and a slimmer majority in the senate, please note that the leader and democrats are going fight hard to keep their agenda and restart our economy, and there will be more work to be done. i would like to hand over the podium to nicole rivera, who put this together. she will introduce the panelists and go over some logistics. i want to point out quickly that we are being recorded by san francisco government tv. the camera in front is only aimed at the podium. it is not taking shots of the audience, only the podium for people who want to ask

questions. so do not worry, you are not on tv if you do not want to be. >> thank you for your patience. i am a representative with leader pelosi, and i'm thrilled to have you today to learn more of our best practices for accessing credit. it is a priority for our office. we are very well aware of how small businesses are running up against the wall right now in terms of trying to get the credit and loans they are looking for, so i will try hard to bring the brightest minds in this room so you can effectively fix their range and learn more about what you can do better to fix your business plan and what it is they are looking for. first of all, i will introduce everyone. mark quinn is the san francisco district director of the u.s. small business administration.

the small business administration covers not only san francisco proper but the bay area. the severed his third district is responsible for a business loan portfolio of 12,000 loans worth $4.2 billion. in 2009, the sba approved $500 million in lending. next, we have the executive director of the san francisco small business office. she was in san francisco in 1986 to open the buffalo exchange limited store, and in the 13 years she worked for buffalo exchange, tennis district manager, she held her open the company from four to 11 stores. in 2009, the mayor appointed her as executive director to the office of small businesses. next, we have the ceo of opportunity funds. he has combined his background as a community organizer with an education from stanford to

develop an innovative, not-for- profit financial incision that uses market principles to affect systemic change. it operates one of the nation's largest individual development, programs, a leading provider of micro loans in california, and has a robust community real estate finance unit. next, we have the ceo of ne community federal credit union. since 1988, she has been the ceo of northwest community federal credit union. under her watch, the credit union group to over 1600 members. it has become the national model for institutions seeking to provide financial education and banking services to the low- income communities. last but not least, we have our conditional lender represented here by wells fargo. mark cyrus is the senior fda banker for the region -- the senior sba banker.

he held businesses choose the best loans for the growing business and focus on a comprehensive understanding of their goals for their business. mark is responsible for helping entrepreneurs with sba loans every step of the way. i would like each of you to speak a little bit about what your organization does and, more importantly, address the audience here and let them know what your looking for when you are hoping to fund their loan. we will start with you, mark. >> absolutely. thank you. i want to thank speaker pelosi for putting this together. i want to thank all of the of for coming out on a smell it -- snowy san francisco date. [laughter] we've been told we should get us know when we go back outside. not sure what to expect. second, i thank speaker pelosi

for all the work she did to support the jobs act and before that, the stimulus bill, the original american recovery act bill that allows sba to be able to besba landing more available to small businesses. very important piece of our tools that we have in this really very difficult time for small businesses to get access to credit. finally, i want to find the rest of the folks here, my colleagues on the panel. it is the case that sba works with these organizations to try to help small businesses understand how to get credit and fine tools to be able to do that. sba programs cover a wide range, and i will talk about this range of lending and the kinds of things we do, but in many ways, we do not do it alone. we do it with partners, and that is the takeaway message, the

sba lending activity, while would guarantee loans through a number of lenders, we do it with a lot of other partners as well. let me give a little bit of a sense of what the small business administration does and is. we in san francisco covered the bay area and north coast counties, and we do a variety of things. i will come back to the credit card because i know that is what this session is about, but before i do that, there's two other roles we play that are important as well. one is about helping small businesses understand how to start businesses, getting good technical assistance, getting good advice about starting and managing your business. equally important is being prepared for credit. one of the things we tried to do is work with small businesses to understand how to be ready for credit. a lot of that is helping folks that are interested in starting a business understand how to develop a business plan, how to

get good advice about starting and managing a business. we see a lot of small businesses interested in starting a business, and they have a talent or skill or craft, and they know what they want to do, but they really need to structure a rounded to do it. part of what they need, through partners, through score, through our business centers that we have in san francisco, and through the small business development center we also have here, really help small businesses understand how to get started in business, how to develop business plans, how to be able to put yourself in a position of planning for your business as much as running your business. a big part of what we do is the technical assistance and counseling work we do for folks interested in starting a business or those in the early stages who really need advice about where to go when you run into the wall, about financing, marketing, managing your business. that is an important role we play as well. another role we play is helping

small businesses understand how to do contract thing, particularly with the federal government, but in a more general way, with all the public sector players. one of the things that small businesses always need is customers. one of the big customers out there is the public sector, but one of the challenges is the public sector on every level, federal, state, and local, are always difficult for small businesses to understand how to navigate the process of getting certified to do business, finding the right sources to be able to talk to and understand how to navigate getting into the contract thing rolls with public sectors, so we try to help small businesses understand that, and we partner with a lot of organizations -- the city, the state of california, and now federal agencies, to be able to take advantage of a huge buying opportunity for small businesses, but one that they find very intimidating. sometimes it takes too long.

it is too complicated. for real red tape of process is something less certainly exists with small businesses try to get into public contracts the work. those are two roles we play, separate from the access to credit roll. on the financing side, sba plays a role across a wide spectrum in terms of who we partner with and what kinds of loans sba is able to guarantee. we are not a direct lender or guarantee lender. we have a couple of program he says, just to give you a sense, and i will let eric talk about the microlending side, but we have a microloan program to deal with the early stage client looking for a small loan under $50,000, down to, really, $10,000. for those businesses that are not viable in any real way but have a great idea, have some abilities to show that they have a good plan and really need to be able to get some early stage

financing. that is kind of a non- traditional source of capital that exists out there. the main sba programs are guaranteed loan programs, and we act essentially as a guarantor, insuring the bank that if you make a loan to a small business, the business is not able to pay the loan, the sba will pay the bank a share of that long, typically 75% or 80%. a bank like wells fargo, for example, which is the largest sba lender in the country. when the lender makes the loan to you, they come to us and say that your business, for a variety of reasons, may not be strong enough to get a loan without a guarantee. it might be a business that is too young or is a type of business -- say, restaurants -- that are a little riskier than they want to deal with, or you do not have the kind of collateral a lender is looking for. "an sba lender will be able to make the loan with a guarantee

that sba will be able to provide. we probably will about 225 sba loans this year. at any point in time, we have about 1500 loans in san francisco that are sba loans. a lot of them are restaurants because that is one of the areas that is very typical because it is a riskier business. but a lot of people in san francisco see that as an opportunity for them as well. we also partner with the golden gate restaurant association to help people understand how to do financing for restaurants. a lot of what we do is helping small businesses get access to credit. the sba loan program covers a range of small loans down to $25,000 and large loans up to $5 million, so it is a very wide range. can be used for a variety of uses -- debt refinancing, building acquisition, working capital, so it can be used for a

wide range of things from a small business point of view. as you heard, we do guarantees for about 90 or 100 banks in the country -- or in the bay area. about 3000 nationwide. there is a lot of lenders that do some sba lending. first thing you want to do is deal with the bank. if they are not able to make the loan by themselves, then go to our website, which is www. sba.gov, and look for the local page to see the local san francisco financing sources. but before you do that, the takeaway message here is that before you go to a bank, make sure you are cleared to do that. you do not want to go to a bank looking for financing for your business and ask them a question that will immediately give them

a sense that you are not ready. you go to a bank and say, "how much can i borrow?" they will tell you, "i do not know, but probably not from us." you need to know exactly what you're looking for, how you are going to use the money, and how you will be paid the bank. part of the process is make sure you are prepared. the first thing you need to do is take a advantage of the resources that can help you develop your business plan and really be prepared to go to a lender. being able to answer the questions you know that they will be asking is part of what we do as well. i'm sure we will have lots of time for questions, but i will send it back to you. >> director of the office of small business with the city and county of san francisco. again, i also want to thank congresswoman pelosi for hosting this event, and with her staff, and her leadership around all the work she has done supporting

small businesses. because she comes from san francisco, and, by our definition, is small business is a business with under 100 employees. that is almost 85% of all businesses in the city. because she is from here, she really understands what small businesses are about, and she articulates your needs in washington, d.c. in may 2008, san francisco opened the office of small business, under the leadership of gavin newsom, under the urging of our small business leaders. the mayor heard there was a need for the community to have a small office to help the needs of our small businesses in san francisco, help them understand and navigate the complex structure in getting a business opened within the city and county of san francisco. initially, primarily, we were

going to be about helping you understand licensing and permitting requirements, but, really, shortly after we open our doors, we understood that we were also, as a government entity, a place for people to come when they want to know about loans, about writing a business plan. where to go to do that, where to go to get assistance. we are also a resourced. when we do see people in our office, many of them are a year or two out from even opening their business, so we will ask them what their credits for is, have they done their business plans, do they know what they're capital needs are going to be, how much money they have, how much money they are going to need to open their business. based upon those questions, we will direct them to the sba for

workshops, courses. there is other entities that also provide workshop courses score as well in terms of helping to write business plans. also helping to educate the distinction between the micro lender, our bank, and our larger financial institutions and how those lending -- what is the difference in how this entities will lend, in addition to the sba loans that are available. also in response to the economic crisis, which hit a couple of months after we open our doors, the mayor reinstated the revolving loan fund, and we partnered with tmc working solutions, which is a micro lender, to provide a loan fund for start of an existing businesses to help them. today, that loan has given out

23 loans, and they are averaging around $15,000 or $25,000 each. another unique thing that the city is doing in terms of helping our businesses and dealing with capital needs is as a city, sometimes, we implement regulations, and you would think that might require some substantial capital for small businesses to do an understanding that a lot of our very small businesses may not have the capital means to be able to implement those regulations. a new one that has just been implemented is there is the fats, oils, and greece requirements that restaurants are going to need to have for their restaurants, and many businesses may have to install new equipment -- fats, oils, and grease. we parted with opportunity loan

fund to help provide a specific program for this new regulation for businesses, and we have also had many businesses experience some drive-by lawsuits, and understanding some of the financial needs in dealing with the losses, making the 88 improvements. again, we partnered with opportunity loan funds to help businesses comply and to deal with their legal needs and with these losses. also, we held businesses understand, if you want to do business with the city and county of san francisco, while we do not regulate that, that is not within our office, but we hope you through the process, and connect with the city agencies who are doing the programs, what we classify as an

lbe, we are only able to classify as a small business, but not a minority or woman- owned business. to talk about what kind of contract you would be able to engage in, we also have a unique feature in that we hear some of the issues that businesses are experiencing and doing business with in san francisco, and so can help work with our policy makers, our legislature and the mayor's office to help change policy that will benefit small businesses as well. with that, i think i will turn it over to budget solutions, but just note that -- i mean, opportunity fund. excuse me. but just know that our office, we are in city hall in the tax and treasurer's office, and our

office is www.sfgov.org/osb. we have some information on that. if you did not get one of our small business booklets and you want one, please take my card, e-mail me, and we will mail you one as well. immigrate. thank you, regina. for those of you looking to contact these organizations, you can find their contact information in the program you should have picked up when you sign in. for those of you who are prospective entrepreneurs, if we could limit the acronyms and talk more about what those acronyms mean. >> sounds good. thanks, mark, virginia, and leader pelosi for putting on this event, and for all that she has done -- thanks mark, regina , and later pelosi. we have been able to access resources through the sba and the cdfi fund which helps get

money to small businesses in this time of need. opportunity fund is not a bank or a government agency. we are an independent nonprofit organization with a mission to provide capital to working people to help them earn, say, and invest in the future. we focus primarily on businesses that are not yet bankable. most of our clients are themselves low or moderate income people or working in low or moderate income neighborhoods. but not exclusively. we will look at any business we think can bring about substantial community benefits. i want to talk about what type of loans we make and whatever products we have. that is important to note that in our case, they mentioned -- i mentioned some acronyms.

the service corps of retired executives, women's business centers, renaissance and entrepreneurs should here in san francisco, women's initiative for self-employed -- those organizations offer classes often and one-on-one counseling. in some cases, whether or not you are seeking a loan -- in our case, and rising is strictly tied to a loan. we are a financial institution. but if you come to us for a loan and we think there is potential for one, we will provide business advising as well as a loan. to give you a sense of who we reach, we are really seeking to lind to traditionally underserved communities. for example, 35% of our borrowers are hispanic or latino. 22% african-american. 60% free mail, and 30% immigrant. -- 60% female. types of businesses -- we will

make loans as small as $500 and as large as $100,000. they can range from home-based very small businesses like child care, people selling in the flea market, on up to janitorial, landscaping, restaurants, dry cleaners, and in some cases, small manufacturers. we sometimes bridges of it in even larger transactions if we think there's community benefits, we might wind collectively with the city's working solutions fund or with another lender. so far, -- and we work throughout the bay area. we work in four bay area counties, said francisco obviously being one of the importance, but also said the clara, san mateo, alameda. we have laid out over $15 million to bay area businesses with a medium loan size of about $7,000 -- median loan size of about $7,000.

who do we work with? principally, we want to work with businesses that have at least one year of sales history. we will look at start of businesses in the case with there is significant industry experience and significant owner injection or investment into the business, but if someone comes was without experience and without capital to invest, we will recommend that they go through a training program and go get some experience before we would be able to lend to them, and that is a fact. we have got to get our loans repaid. we have to maintain a strong portfolio. we are now actually working with the sba. they are one of the sources of our loan capital along with banks like wells fargo, and all of our capital providers want their money back. we make loans, i mentioned, as small as $500, up to $100,000, and we make them at an 8% fixed rate with no prepayment penalty. terms of up to seven years,

depending on the amount and purpose, and we look at the client's existing income, but we will take into account the global household financial picture. we will actually looked beyond tax occurrence. that is one of the things we can do as a non-regulated lenders. we are able to look at cash- based businesses in some ways that would be difficult for a larger financial institutions. in terms of lending based on projections, we typically do not lie on -- rely on projections, but unless is a contract that has been awarded. we're really looking at what actually you already have in the household. in terms of credit, we want to see that your credit is currently in good standing, but a mix credit history is ok. that is another way we might differ from a more traditional lender. we want to see that currently, you have no unpaid tax liens,

child support, or judgments. we have no automatic credits for cut off. we are more interested in the substance of a client and where they are today. if you have no credit within credit, we can work with that. a portly, and you will hear this from all small business leaders, and it is something to get in your head now, all of our loans are personally guaranteed by the client. we are not using or reporting business credit. we are relying on personal guarantees and personal credit. that is just what is going to happen at the end of this $100,000 on down and of the lending market. in terms of process, we can turn a lone run in five to 15 days depending on the amount -- we can turn alone are around. one thing i want to midget before we hand it over is that we have a new program to focus specifically on green lending. we had a large investment recently by jp morgan chase into our loan fund. we are looking for businesses

that are looking to put in more energy-efficient equipment or retrofit or remove toxins from processed here we have been lending to drive cleaners that are giving you more environmentally friendly products, truck drivers putting in new exhaust systems. finally, just to give you kind of a scale of what we do, mark mentioned the sba right guaranteed 275 loans in a year. we expected to 50 or 60 in san francisco this year, and more like 250 or 300 throughout the bay area. if you are hearing something interesting and you want to talk, the dominant in the purple suit has been handing me question cards out. >> i am the ne community federal